The parents of an adult student charged with making a terroristic threat against her former Upstate New York high school say their daughter doesn't have the cognitive capability to carry out such a crime.

Abigail Hernandez, 21, of Rochester, was charged with a felony last week for threatening to shoot students at East High School on Facebook. She was arrested five days after making the threat on February 15, and investigators said the delay was due to her use of an anonymous Facebook account.

The post also expressed sympathy with the mass shooting suspect at a school in Parkland, Florida earlier this month.

Hernandez came to the U.S. at the age of 3 and qualifies for "dreamer" status under Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) rules, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle reported.

She transferred from East High School to Edison Tech High School three years ago to attend a special education program more suited to her needs.

Since her arrest on February 20, she has been bailed out, then taken back into custody by immigration authorities who are holding her at the Buffalo Federal Detention Center.

Eufracio Torres, Hernandez's father, and her mother who asked not to be identified by name, don't believe that their daughter wrote the alleged threatening Facebook post. They told the D&C that even if she did make it, she would have been unable to carry out the threat.

"She's not right mentally -- she doesn't pick up what people say," her mother told the paper. "She's very dependent on me."

"You put my daughter (in front of our house) and say to go to East (High), she doesn't know how," her father said. "You see her face on the news? She's scared. ... She (must be saying to herself), 'Oh man, what happened to me, what I did?' But she no do nothing wrong.

"She's not a terrorist. ... Now I'm very worried for her," he added.

Torres and his wife have green cards, and their two younger children are American citizens. Rochester Police did find a shotgun in the family's home, but Torres said it was his and it was stored at a rental property he owns across the street. He claimed his daughter had never touched it.